Job losses confirmed as warehouse closes (From Swindon Advertiser)

Job losses confirmed as warehouse closes

12:00pm Wednesday 2nd January 2013 in Local and National Jobs News By Julie Magee

THE boss of Beales has confirmed that jobs will be lost following a decision to close warehouse facilities in the Wallisdown area of Bournemouth.

Chief executive Tony Brown said: “We are closing down our Wallisdown warehouse because we don’t need it anymore. Some of the 13 people employed there will be deployed to other areas of our business, including our head office on Richmond Hill.

“It is impossible to say how many jobs will go because the 30-day consultation period is still under way but it will be a very small number; possibly around seven. Closing our store card on November 18 and creating a loyalty card scheme has meant that we no longer need the store card accounts department at Wallisdown. The lease on the warehouse is up.”

A small number of jobs could also be lost in the Bournemouth head office bought ledger department due to new technology.

Mr Brown added: “Technology keeps moving on; at the moment I can’t see any need for further job losses but we can only respond to the market. The number of jobs which could go is a very tiny percentage when you consider that we employ around 2,000 staff across our 33 stores.”

Festive trading at the company’s Bournemouth and Poole stores has been ‘above expectations, with Bournemouth faring particularly well’, according to the Beales boss.

He said: “Customers are very canny these days; they scout around in search of the best deals. We will be able to more accurately assess our Christmas trading performance after January 7.”